


Iron Will, The Miscellaneous Archive

by jacksgreysays (jacksgreyson)



Series: The Six Paths of Tetsuki Kaiza [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-11-22 05:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreysays
Summary: (The collection of loosely related snippets and ficlets set in the Iron Will 'verse. Originally posted on tumblr.)





	1. (2015-07-24) ficlet

“You’ll have to kill me, too.”

The Fire Lord does not flinch, because leaders of nations should not flinch at the truth. But Zuko does, because he is still human and one of his friends has just laid out their own death sentence.

“I’m as much a war criminal as they. You can’t be seen favoring one side over the other.”

The will of the Fire Lord–

“The Fire Lord rules at the will of the people. If you execute Azula and Ozai then you have to execute Earth Kingdom people as well.”

The prisons are strong, they have held for nearly a decade, they can continue to do so.

“Not forever.”

Nothing is forever.


	2. (2015-09-08) ficlet

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says to you, so softly that you can barely hear it; softly so no one else can hear. It wouldn’t do to have anyone hear the Fire Lord apologize to a war criminal soon to be executed.

You say nothing in response, but you nod minutely–in acknowledgement, in forgiveness, in permission–before you are led forward in chains and forced to kneel.

For crimes against humanity; that’s what you are charged with. It’s certainly what you are guilty of, for all that they didn’t seem human at the time. The Fire Nation soldiers you killed, that is.

It was war and you were a child just trying to survive, you could argue. You never harmed civilians, you could say. And you would be telling the truth.

But it doesn’t excuse the way you crept into the homes and slit the throats of over a hundred Fire Nation soldiers. Killed them in their sleep, in the dark of the night, and left their corpses for their families to find.

Accessions must be made for peace. It does not matter that you are friends with the Fire Lord, with the Avatar; Zuko’s rule is tenuous, Aang’s authority non existant in the Fire Nation. In order for Azula and Ozai to be executed, in order to secure the throne in Zuko’s name, an Earth Kingdom criminal must be dealt the same punishment.

You know this, because you were the one to suggest it.

~

You are six the last time you see your sister, ZhuEn. She is fifteen and father has proclaimed her a skilled enough bounty hunter to begin working on her own. She leaves on the back of her shirshu, off to make a name for herself, and you dream of one day being just like her. It was a bittersweet time–happier, lighter, but the last moment of such contentment.

You are seven when Fire Nation soldiers kill your father for refusing to take a hunt. You are seven when you see him burn and you flee, more from his agonized screams than the towering armored figures. You never really forgive yourself for that.

You live for years, just wandering from forest to forest; occasional stops in towns, wreaking what damage to the Fire Nation army you can by way of murder and theft.

You try to convince yourself you are a hero, but you have always been more of a coward than a liar. There is no point in hiding the truth from yourself.

You are fourteen when you happen upon the Freedom Fighters, the group of refugee children playing at guerrilla warriors. You are not quite the same as them, but you see something in Jet’s eyes–a reflection of someone you could have been–and maybe he sees something in you, too, because he lets you stay.

Perhaps lets is the wrong word, because in a matter of months you find yourself clashing with Jet more and more often. About ideology and implementations–you are a blade where he is a bludgeon. The Freedom Fighters grow, but it also begins to split between you and him, and you are so close to just taking your faction and leaving when–

You are fifteen when you meet the Avatar.


	3. (2015-10-04) ficlet

You’re not a bender.

You know this like you know your left hand is better than your right. Like you know you have better night vision than color differentiation. Like you know your face in a reflection.

(Ah, but a reflection is not the real thing, is it?)

You’re not a bender, but sometimes you can sense things: Jet’s curved, hook swords, and the delicate loop of Gui’s mother’s bracelet. You can tell when a troop of armored Fire Nation soldiers are incoming, and whether or not they carry weapons. You know instinctively where a Fire Nation family keeps their knives, where they keep their gold.

It’s just something you can do.

It’s why you know that the girl in the ill-fitting Kiyoshi warrior uniform is far more dangerous than she appears–each hidden knife calling out a warning.

But that’s just a trick; just a small portion of your perception. You have other methods of observations available to you and years of experience using them.

You know from the way she defers to the other impostor Kiyoshi warrior, that the girl with the hidden knives is not the most dangerous.

—

When you first join the Freedom Fighters, it is a small group. Your different methodologies are not as important in the face of your successes, your ability to survive. There are only six of you then–you and Jet and Longshot and Gui and The Duke and Pipsqueak–and it makes sense to fall into pairs when you work. It’s only natural for you to use the same pairings–complimentary skill sets and personalities matching you with Gui, Jet with Longshot, The Duke and Pipsqueak always together.

(Lines already being drawn…)

Then along comes Smellerbee, then the triplets, then Tuzi, then more and more and more until the Freedom Fighters are almost a village unto yourselves.

With so many people, survival depends on cooperation more than individual skills. Conformity, or maybe obedience, is brought up frequently. You chafe against Jet’s presumed leadership.

Smellerbee falls in with Jet and Longshot easily, the missing piece of a puzzle. Tuzi, so quiet and shy, was rescued by Gui, making him yours. The Duke and Pipsqueak, always together, are indifferent to the factions forming. Two of the triplets are as well, but one of them, Feng, follows after you in adoration; and where one triplet goes, the other two follow.

You doubt it will come to battle, or at least you hope it won’t. You’d rather leave to wander on your own than kill your allies. But the leaving in itself would be a problem.

Because if you leave, so too will a significant chunk of the Fighters… and the only person willing and able to fight against Jet.


	4. (2015-10-30) ficlet

You try not to project onto them, the Avatar and his friends, but you find it difficult not to. Even when they’ve made their opinion of you clear. But you don’t need them to like you for you to have an alliance, and when it’s a bunch of children up against the strongest nation in the world, you need all the allies you can get.

Even if you see too much of yourself in these allies. A child unable to return to his past yet yearning for those happier times. A girl cut so deeply by soldiers in red it haunts her dreams. A teenager standing up against armies with only his wits and a small blade. You appreciate the fact that when all is said and done, despite contradicting methodologies, you are still on the same side.

But you cannot afford to show any weakness, even if they are your allies. Still, you are grateful for them, and you have Gui act as a counter guide–he may not be able to match Jet’s charisma, but he is your partner for a reason. Gui is smart and honest and kind in his own way, if he can’t win the Avatar’s trust then you Forest Faction had no chance to begin with.

—

It kills you to say this, but you know you need to split up. The Freedom Fighters, whether they are Jet’s or yours, must be disbanded. Those with living family are to go there, but it still leaves a distressing amount left. Orphans are the lifeblood of the Freedom Fighters.

The Duke and Pipsqueak will never part, though that was not in question. After that, Jet only has Longshot and Smellerbee left, and three is not such a large group. The same cannot be said of your Forest Faction.

You, Gui, Tuzi, and the triplets. Six people. You are loathe to split the triplets, but there is no other way. They will attract too much attention, and they are still young and inexperienced.

In this venture, they need stealth and speed, they cannot stand out as anything more than refugees.

“See you in Ba Sing Se,” you promise to a solemn Gui and Tuzi, each with a triplet as a traveling companion. Beside you, Feng holds back her tears, though the same cannot be said for her sisters.

“You three as well,” you direct to Jet and his lieutenants. For all that you never quite saw eye to eye, especially towards the end, you and Jet were partners. Occasionally friends when you could stand each other, but guaranteed allies at the very least.

“Hey, don’t worry about us. We’ll be back together and fighting in no time,” Jet says with such confidence that you can’t help but believe him.

That’s the last time you see him alive.


	5. (2015-11-08) ficlet

Once, back when the Freedom Fighters were just a group of six kids–before the Forest Faction ever became a thought in your mind–you worked with Longshot. Gui had spotted a platoon of Fire Nation soldiers camping not too far from an Earth aligned village. There was no disagreement–the village would be destroyed if you didn’t kill the soldiers that night. But done poorly, if it wasn’t quickly or stealthily or throroughly, all it would take was one survivor, one messenger bird, for a larger force to be sent.

Normally, you partnered with Gui, but normally you were not planning massacres. For this, Gui was not deadly enough, and, surprisingly, neither was Jet. The other four would form a perimeter, a fall-back to prevent any escapees, but for the main force it would be you and Longshot.

“The heart, the throat, maybe the brain via the eye if you think you can,” you listed to him, knowing his perfect accuracy was normally used to avoid lethal hits. But, again, this was not normal.

He nodded, solemn, and you looked away from the brief shudder that rolled through him.

In the dark, moonless night, you crept through a camp of Fire Nation soldiers and slit the throats of eight sleeping men. After number eight, they began to wake up.

At the end of it all, your count increased to fourteen. It’s larger than Longshot’s seven, and the others’ collective four, but you had experience with literal blood on your hands. The others–except maybe Gui–did not.

You stand in silence next to Longshot as he stared at his arrows–heart, throat, brain, and one in a messenger bird one soldier had tried to send off. When he turned to you, something dark and sickened in his eyes, you did not need words to know that he never wanted to work with you again.


	6. (2015-11-09) ficlet

In the span of thirty heartbeats, seventeen footsteps, eight breaths, someone is going to die. It might be you, it might be the Fire Nation scout moving along the forest floor.

If he doesn’t look up, maybe no one has to die. Your clothes and hair are dark, both blend in with the foliage. Perched in the tree as you are, perhaps your limbs will be misconstrued as branches. If you’re quiet, maybe he will just walk on by and there won’t have to be a confrontation. Maybe no one has to die tonight.

Nineteen heartbeats, eleven footsteps, five breaths.

But you will never have as good an opportunity to prove yourself as you do now.

Scouts are fast and stealthy, they are meant to run ahead and observe then report back. But in this situation, you are already the stealthier one, and you are confident in your speed.

Eight heartbeats, five footsteps, two breaths.

You are less confident in your single knife, smaller reach, and likely inferior strength. It certainly doesn’t match up to his sword, adult sized limbs and muscles, and military training. You are only eleven, after all.

But this is your best chance.

Your pulse is hammering away. The scout is two steps away from the ideal landing point.

You breathe.


	7. (2016-09-14) ficlet

His blade is sharp, but your wits are sharper. And it’s been a long time since the show of steel has made you afraid.

Today will not see the end of you yet.

—

You are comfortable in the forest, but not at home.

(You’ve never had a home that wasn’t people now long gone.)

But you think, as you and Jet gather others to you–other kids who have lost and have burned but have survived nonetheless–maybe one day.

—

Gui finds you, wild-eyed and unkempt and suspicious of everything, perched in the trees outside a Fire Nation village and doesn’t say a word.

You save his life, not two hours later, shoving the soldier in red who’s spotted his deception off a cliff in broad daylight, even though it’s ruined your element of surprise.

You’re even.

—

It’s easy to miss what you used to have, less so to yearn for something you don’t understand.

The triplets are sweet, still innocent for all that they have suffered, too, and you think of ZhuEn and ache.

But you and she were never equals–never more than just daughters of the same man.


	8. (2017-01-03) ficlet

Seven minute countdown, let’s see how we do.

Fire and metal and the screams. Of blades against armor, of people fighting and afraid. There’s a pounding in your heart, so loud you can feel it in your wrists in your throat.

Your skin is so cold. Hypersensitive. Hairs standing on end, futile, ready, failing.

Four minutes left.

A sudden blast. Heat and sound, concussive force. False wind, blowing your hair back, drying the sweat on your face.

Rumblings of shattered stone.

Flashes of light and false thunder.

You’ve never felt this before, but it’s so familiar, written in your bones and hidden in your blood.

In another world, that’d be you with lightning at your fingertips. Force of nature in the form of a teenaged girl.

Instead all you have is your deep seated resentment. Rage and guilt and sorrow mixed into a heady miasma. A pair of knives and some children who don’t know any better than to follow in your footsteps.

One minute left.

You will never save the world. You are not the hero, not the sidekick, not the antagonist redeemed.

You are a cautionary tale, a warning, a martyr in the making.

Maybe you won’t get out of this alive, but you’ve been a dead girl walking for seven years.

Time’s up.


	9. An Azula Author's Cut ficlet (2017-07-15)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula's opinion of Tetsuki, prompted by generic-name-goes-here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Author's Cut](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11547186/chapters/25929552) event

You shake off the hypnotism.

No, it doesn’t even touch you, like water against a turtle duck’s shell.

The Dai Li are caught off guard.

They’ve taken your friends and they’ve taken your knives–you’re desperate and have nothing to lose. Teeth and nails; unerring, vicious accuracy and a frenetic, unpredictable rhythm.

For a single, optimistic second you think you might be able to win.

But you are underground and they are earth benders.

(Your tactics are designed to be used against Fire Nation soldiers, in the comfortable setting of forests, not caves.)

They bring you to the Fire Princess, force you to kneel, blood still dripping down your chin. You bare your teeth, streaked with red, and refuse to speak.

“What a waste,” she says with a surprising amount of sincerity, as if honestly bemoaning the fact that this near feral teenager won’t pledge fealty to her.

She’s about a decade too late for that.

///

Frankly, you’re not on the same level as the others.

Your struggles were smaller scale–single towns and individual murders–nothing so far reaching as royalty or the balance of nations. The fate of this world does not rest on your shoulders.

And yet, that’s why you get involved: it shouldn’t have to rest on any one person’s shoulders.

You’ve never killed a king before, but you’re more than ready to step up if the Avatar can’t do it.

Instead, on the day of black sun, you find yourself facing the Fire Princess once more.

Jet’s hook swords are still a little clumsy in your hands, a mediocre showing of his signature weapons, but you think he wouldn’t mind too much when you’re trying to kill Fire Nation scum with them.

“Didn’t I kill you?” the Fire Princess asks, ducking under a swing, almost conversational.

Getting struck by lightning isn’t exactly on your list of experiences to repeat–the most painful thing your body has been through, like your blood boiling from the inside–but you didn’t die from it.

(Actually–not that you’ll ever tell anyone–you were able to walk away after a few minutes, not a single burn or scar to show for it.)

“That little zap?” you sneer back, and you think it must be the swords’ influence because you were never one for repartee like this, “You’ll have to try harder than that.”

Weirdly enough, the Fire Princess smiles.

///

You don’t see her again until After, when she is but a shadow of her former self.

There is no life for her here–or anywhere, really. Compassion’s not really your thing, but you never believed in drawing out a death.

“I can make it quick. Clean and quiet,” you offer, unnerved at yourself. Not about the actual offer, but the recipient.

The guards have no idea what you are talking about.

Her head tilts. A spark of something showing through her eyes, “Make it loud. Make it bright. Make it messy.”

Despite the restraints, she is commanding, she is regal. You wonder what your life would be like if you had met her much earlier.

“I want to go out with a bang.”


	10. A Fire Nation!Tetsuki AU Author's Cut ficlet (2017-07-30)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on the previous chapter and an anonymous prompt for Tetsuki to be Azula's bodyguard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Author's Cut](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11547186/chapters/25929552) event

The only difference between what you will and might have become is this:

When you are six years old, your maternal uncle dies. Your grandparents–who had disowned your mother for running off with a lowly, uncouth Earth Kingdom bounty hunter–are now without an heir.

Your father will not give up ZhuEn–she is near to completing her training and would not suffer going anyway–whereas you are six years old and the reason why your mother is no longer alive.

The choice is obvious because it is not yours to make.

///

It becomes apparent very early on that your grandparents don’t really want you. They’re just making do. But even a second born mongrel of an heiress is better than their line ending.

They are desperate and have a reputation to maintain, and so they send you off to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls in hopes the matrons will make something of you.

You’re certainly made into something, but not by the matrons.

///

You hate school.

You only just started training with your father before he sent you away, but you miss the lessons–how to hide in the trees, rig traps and ambushes, and where to stab a person so it’ll hurt but not maim.

At the Royal Fire Academy for Girls you are taught useless things, like how to eat a meal in a ladylike manner and play musical instruments and the names of long dead Fire Nation nobles.

You smuggle a pair of knives into your uniform and memorize the matrons’ patrol of the dorm at night. During lessons you daydream about escaping, but you don’t actually plan on following through:

You’re sure your grandparents would disown you–heiress be damned–and your father has made it clear there is no place for you.

Still, just in case.

///

You don’t look like your father–whose image is fading quickly from your memories–but you have an Earth Kingdom look about you, grey eyes nearly green.

“Like pond scum,” the princess says with a falsely sweet smile on her face.

One not entirely useless thing you’ve learned at the academy: words can be as sharp as blades.

“Your nose is cute,” you say–and you can practically see the interest fade from the princess’ eyes. Everyone compliments her, wants to befriend royalty–“like a baby boarcupine’s.”

Even the young of that particular species can only be generously considered hideous.

Anger and interest flare. You smile back.

///

After that, your status at the school shoots skyward like a firework.

Your parentage doesn’t matter anymore, neither does the fact that you’re heiress to only a minor house–you are part of the Fire Princess’ cohort.

Even the matrons begin to treat you better, no longer smacking your hands to make you pay attention. Now you are allowed to daydream in peace, but you no longer need to: you’ve found your place.

Or, rather, your place has been found for you.


	11. A Fire Nation!Tetsuki AU ficlet (2017-08-17)

Perhaps, if it was just the three of them, it wouldn’t have worked. Azula’s abrasiveness and Mai’s negativity and Ty Lee’s desperate, failing attempts to hold them together dissolving with every passing snide and dark remark.

But you are there.

And you are not quite sure what you bring to the group, what missing component it is that you intrinsically have and contribute that makes it work so beautifully, but it does.

And instead of just drifting apart, only coming together when the Fire Lord sends Azula on her mission, bonds long frayed and ready to snap, leaving is deliberate. Is a choice. Is just the first step in a plan to make sure that when the time comes, the four of you will be stronger than ever.

///

For a while, you serve in the court as Azula’s attendant. Which seems like basically a glorified servant, but which your grandparents are ecstatic about–what an honor, they exclaim, their halfbreed heiress getting so close to royalty.

It works, for a while. You learn some things: what games are played amongst high society, political dealings and tangled schemes, and the power of below the stairs rumors, the lifeblood of the court.

But it’s not enough.

“I’ll become useless to you,” you say to Azula one night, after you’ve reported the most important secrets to her. You’ve seen her use even the most innocuous misconduct to bust a would be captain down to helmsman.

Your reports help, but they’re not vital.

“As useless as a pampered, pedigree catowl,” you finish, because this has been on your mind for a while and better to admit it now while you still have the self-awareness to do so than to have it thrown in your face months later.

“I’ve never know you to be a coward,” Azula responds, pausing mid brush and staring down your reflection, “If you want to leave me, you can just say so.”

I’m not leaving you, you don’t say. I could never leave you, you definitely don’t say.

“You don’t need me here,” you say, instead, because that is safer, “But one day you will and I need to know that I won’t be the anchor dragging you down when that happens.”

One month, she demands, doesn’t ask, and you are both relieved and disappointed; still, you take the time you are given and prepare.

Azula’s enemies are not here. Or, at least, not any that are a real threat to her, they’re out traveling the the world.

You need to do the same.

///

Zuko was always going to be a problem.

You knew this even before you noticed Mai’s persistent crush on him, the blatant way the Dragon of the West preferred him over Azula.

Before the Agni Kai.

“He’s incompetent,” Azula scoffs, dismissing the notion, “and soft.”

And normally that would be enough to convince you, but this is for Azula and for her, you are tenacious.

“It doesn’t matter that he’s not as skilled or smart or even if he wanted to be a tea server in Ba Sing Se! He is still the firstborn, and male at that, there will always be members of the court who would rather see him succeed your father than you.”

There are still whispers of discontent, after all, thinking Iroh ought to be restored to his rightful place over Ozai.

You will not have the same happen to Azula.

///

When you leave, Azula gifts you with a houndsnake. Its black and green diamond patterned fur is beautiful, of course, but you appreciate its sharp fangs and paralytic venom sacs far more.

And the way that, after a curious sniff and lick, it coils around your shoulders placid and ready to strike anyone who comes too close.

There’s one unfortunate cretin who will be spending the next week in the hospital for daring to assault the attendant of the princess–never mind that it’s her last day.

Houndsnakes are not native to the Fire Nation archipelago, nor are they a common creature in pet stores.

They are loyal and dangerous and not at all useless.

It is the nicest compliment Azula has ever given you.


	12. Ask Box Would You Ever ficlet (2018-02-15), anonymous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Would You Ever event](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860777/chapters/31884900), Fire Nation!Tetsuki interaction with Zuko

The first time you come to court is as Azula’s–friend, follower, servant, plaything, you’re not sure, you don’t much care–you try not to gawk at the sheer opulence like the absolute hoyden you are.

Your origins were humble, for all that your bloodline says otherwise, your early years were spent in forest camps and rough villages with barely enough people to be considered such. Your father worked best on the frontier, amongst people who would never know or care about what kings and lords got up to so long as they could take care of their basic needs.

In another life, you might have been much the same.

But even going from that to your grandparents’ holdings–their mansion only one in comparison  to the utterly tiny buildings in the town around it–is nothing like the adjustments required here.

“You’re making a scene,” Mai sighs, informing but uncaring. Hypocrite. Her family is better off than yours, but they’re nouveau riche–the court is an entirely different sort of splendor than she’s used to as well.

“Who needs ceilings that high?” You respond rather than feel chastened. You’re not the one making a scene, you are insignificant in the trail of Azula as it should be. “How do people even get up there? The servants must, there would be cobwebs otherwise.”

“Who cares what the servants do?” Mai says, a droll sort of thing meant to shame you once more. She is not Azula, her words have no bite.

Ty Lee giggles, “Maybe they stack on top of each other to reach the ceilings.”

You consider the thought, smile at the image, “I doubt it,” you disagree, but temper it with flattery, “I don’t think any servants are as skilled as you are.”

“Obviously,” Mai says–less in agreement to the compliment and more out of disparaging those inferior–but it still makes Ty Lee grin brightly.

“Quiet,” Azula says, not even turning around to address you to your faces. It gets the job done anyway. “I don’t have to remind you to be on your best behavior, do I?”

It is threat more than question, but plausibly deniable permission on top of that.

Then Azula turns around, a small, sideways smile on her lips. “Let’s show the court exactly what we learned at the Academy.”

—

Nothing catches on fire–both surprising and not in a hall full of benders–but Ty Lee does manage to get up to the ceiling by way of hanging banners and three tactless young officers end up with stab wounds.

Only one of them was your fault.

—

Bizarrely enough, you meet the Dragon of the West before the Fire Nation prince. Or perhaps it is not so odd given the way the boy avoids his younger sister.

It is incidental when you meet him, the Dragon of the West, the would-have-been Fire Lord were it not for his lost son.

You wonder, briefly, what it must be like to have a father who would ruin himself at losing you. But, of course, you would have no idea where to begin.

It is as you are wandering the halls–not lost, merely… exploring–that you happen upon each other.

“Your eyes,” says the Dragon of the West, surprised, and you look away quickly, flushing, self-conscious. Your eyes are grey and green and nothing at all like flames.

“Please excuse me, your highness,” you murmur before scuttling away.

You get even more lost before a maid happens upon you and is kind enough to guide you back. As befitting your borrowed status, she does not look you in the eyes.

—

You will never know this, but it was not the color of your eyes that surprised the Dragon of the West but rather their age.

He would have said they were old eyes in a young face.

He would have been right.

—

The first time you meet Zuko it is from two steps behind Azula as is your place. He barely even notices you–which internally you sneer as a lack of situational awareness, but you know has more to do with the way he practically flinches away from his younger sister.

This? This is supposed to be the future Fire Lord?

Pathetic.

Unfortunately, it’s not so much about him as a person as it is him as a symbol–there is no argument that Azula is the better heir, more talented, more compelling, the kind of leader that would bring greatness to the nation. But there will still be traditionalists and opportunists who prefer him over her. Those who cling foolishly to birth order and sex, those who would rather have an easily manipulated Fire Lord.

His mere existence is a threat to Azula’s reign.

—

The second time you meet Zuko, you actually exchange words.

In plain clothes and a houndsnake coiled loosely around your shoulders, you look nothing like a royal attendant.

He recognizes you anyway, if belatedly, apparently not so unobservant as you thought.

“Fire Nation Prince Zuko,” you say to the Freedom Fighters, most of them too thrilled at capturing their prey to pay any attention to his face or yours.

“Let me go,” he says. He struggles with the ropes. Futilely tries to burn them away.

“I wouldn’t bother,” you say, “they’re enforced with wire. You’d only end up burning yourself.”

Jet laughs at the irony and, after a beat, so do the others. He takes over at this point, as is his wont. He still thinks he’s in charge. It’s useful, so she’ll let him. “Listen up, Fire Nation scum,” he starts on his spiel, “we are the children of those you killed, those you oppressed. We’re what happens when–”

“Did Azula put you up to this?” Zuko asks, interrupting Jet, and if there is anything bitter in his tone, resigned and expectant, then it is too mild for you to hear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, because why would you ever give up your cover at his behest, “I’m just an Earth Kingdom orphan trying to strike back against Fire Nation tyranny.”

—

In another life, you wouldn’t be lying at all.


	13. Ask Box Things You Said, anonymous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Things You Said event](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533413/chapters/33579345), Fire Nation!Tetsuki/Azula, 21) things you said when we were on top of the world

“Green suits you,” Azula says from behind her, voice as diverting as ever. Tetsuki doesn’t tense up, though with anyone else she would–hating the idea of anyone else putting her in such a vulnerable position. With Azula physical location means nothing.

And plus, her houndsnake continues to lounge lazily across her shoulders: he would not be so relaxed with just anyone. She’s travelled with the Freedom Fighters for months and he still growls when they draw too near.

Tetsuki turns around to face her princess, “It suits you far less,” she responds, smile immediately curling on her mouth at the sight of the Fire Nation princess in overly traditional Earth Kingdom garb.

“Yes, well, needs must.” Azula sniffs, adjusting the headdress she took from the Kiyoshi warriors, “Terribly impractical, honestly, but it’s not as if I expected any better.”

“It seems effective enough,” Tetsuki nods, gesturing at their surroundings. If she had to be honest, she’d admit that she much preferred the throne room in Ba Sing Se than the Fire Lord’s–though she had only been there once. Something about the solidity of the stone, as if this palace were as old as the mountains itself.

Too bad the same could not be said of its monarchy.

“Was your ticket to entry as impractical as mine?” Azula asks, though surely she must already know.

“I wouldn’t say impractical so much as annoying.” Jet–and the Freedom Fighters through him–have been useful in many ways, especially in capturing Zuko without expending too much effort on her part, but managing his ego to guide him has been tedious.

She’ll be glad to be rid of the both of them.

“You’ve done adequately with the resources available,” Azula says and Tetsuki blinks at her, surprised. That… was a compliment, perhaps?

“You seems to be in a good mood,” she remarks, hesitantly, not wanting to spoil it but unable to ignore it. Tetsuki always wants Azula to be happy.

Fortunately, Azula’s satisfaction is not so easily soured, “Why wouldn’t I be? My idiot brother has been handled, the Dai Li is mine, this city is mine, and soon enough the Avatar will fall. Our victory is assured.”

“Our victory?” Tetsuki reflexively repeats, internally scolding herself. Azula is always careful with word choice, to question her is to doubt her.

Instead of answering her, Azula meets her eyes and reaches a hand out. Tetsuki can feel a twitch run down her arm, an attempt to reach back swiftly aborted. Tetsuki’s houndsnake sniffs at Azula’s hand, tongue flicking against her fingers in greeting. Those fingers can wield lightning, can form flames so hot they run blue; it seems neither Tetsuki nor her houndsnake are afraid.

Finally, Azula says, “I knew it would be a good match.”


End file.
